Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Suddenly it’s like the world has changed, I have to quickly adapt to
this new environment or be lost, it amazes me how quickly we as humans
do adapt when thrown into the fire. I have people from all over the
world in my class, so it’s definitely a new experience for all of us,
suddenly we all find ourselves having to adjust to a new culture,
language, food, not to mention climate. Well maybe not everybody has to
adjust to the climate, but for us Indians, it’s definitely a shift. A
Kashmiri girl was telling me about how depressed she was when she first
came to Paris, while Kashmir is just as cold and snowy it’s not gloomy
and depressing, which to me was surprising considering how conflict
ridden that area has been… shows how little I know about my own country.
On the other hand there’s a Telagu girl who has gone down to Nice to
study finance who messaged me, not to complain about the weather, but
about the Tamilian roommate who screwed her over and has landed her in a
pickle over her accommodation and so she will never trust a Tamilian
again… It’s funny how the community we’re from determines the way we
respond to situations. Each group of people in India has a particular
stereotype and while we would like to dispel them as untrue, they
usually aren’t. For example, people from Andhra Pradesh are supposed to
be very emotional, they take things personally. So if they love you
they’ll do anything for you and if they hate you, you’d better watch
out. They’ve also got a great sense of humor and will often use emotion
to manipulate a situation. People from Kerala are supposed to be very
clannish. They will do anything to help their own people and promote
themselves, they’re also very hardworking and ambitious, they’re more
likely to take the lowest pay just to undercut the competition and get
the job… outside of Kerala, in Kerala they’re perpetually on strike. On
the other hand you have Mangaloreans, my own people, who have a
reputation for either being party animals and sporting the crab
mentality, which is that you will do anything to pull other people down
and try to push yourself to the top. Mangaloreans are quite likely to
pull their own family down just to get ahead.